(noob) GTX 970 G1 Gaming
(noob) GTX 970 G1 Gaming
I just started playing PC games on my new PC, so I recently got a Gigabyte GTX 970 G1 gaming card with 4GB RAM. The specs on the website say: Boost at 1354 MHz / Base at 1203 MHz in OC Mode and Boost at 1329 MHz / Base at 1178 MHz in Gaming Mode. But when I check the logs on TechPowerUp GPU-Z, the actual clock speed is 1417.5 MHz. Does this mean someone overclocked it? Could that be the best I can get from it? My current setup includes an i3 6100 and an H110M-A M2 chipset. Please let me know your thoughts and give advice. Thanks!
The clocks mentioned aren't an absolute ceiling, just the minimum recommended values. It's definitely feasible for a card to exceed what's listed on the box without any modifications, simply by not doing anything. Those are the confirmed figures.
In general, the best performance I achieved without BIOS tweaks was around 1490 for the core and 1879 for the memory (though it wasn't very stable, just enough to run a few benchmarks). To reach the current level, I had to modify the BIOS, which is evident from the sig.
The clocks mentioned aren't an absolute ceiling, just the minimum recommended values. It's definitely feasible for a card to exceed what's listed on the box without any modifications, and those are simply the baseline figures.
Any attempt to improve performance beyond these numbers usually requires BIOS modifications, which can be seen in the sig.
The clocks they mention aren't a strict limit, just the minimum required. It's definitely possible for a card to exceed what's listed on the box without doing anything extra. Those are the guaranteed numbers.
Anyway, the best I could achieve without BIOS modding was 1490 on the core and 1879 on the memory (though it wasn't very stable, just enough to run a few benches). To be stable, it needed around 1465 and 1800. It took BIOS modding to reach the current level, lol (you can see that in the sig).
Did you notice any improvement with the OC? Was it worth it?
I didn't really feel the need to change much, but there was definitely a positive change. My new OC does a great job of capturing that above a stock 980, so no complaints needed, haha.
Same GPU and scenario as described on the best answer.
Remember that even with a modded BIOS, the OC will only boost performance by about +8 to +10 FPS.
Given your "noob" status, it's better to avoid modded BIOS right now and go with the standard OC.
After all, as the best answer mentioned, you probably don't really need it, but experimenting is always enjoyable for us nerds. Lol